— Official John Gaffney worked the game along with Ed Corbett and Jeff Anderson. Gaffney’s day began with a 2 p.m. ET game between Marquette and DePaul. Then, because official Mike Stephens was unable to reach South Bend because of winter storm that hit the Northeast, Gaffney agreed to drive from Milwaukee to South Bend—Mapquest says that’s a 3½-hour haul, assuming no traffic delays in Chicago—and call this one, too. He wound up officiating 105 minutes of basketball in a single day.

Notre Dame's five-overtime win over Louisville was full of plenty of dramatic moments. (AP Photo)

— Apparently, Gaffney only works the thrillers. He did the overtime game between Ohio State and Michigan on Tuesday, and Thursday he called the Illinois buzzer-beating upset of No. 1 Indiana.

— In 65 minutes, the Irish and Cardinals combined to commit only 29 turnovers.

— When regulation ended, Notre Dame forward Garrick Sherman had not played. He finished with 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting and six rebounds.

— Notre Dame point guard Eric Atkins played 60 minutes out of the 65 available. His playing time average jumped by a nearly a full minute, and he is now averaging 38.2 minutes per game.

— Notre Dame essentially was chasing Louisville throughout each overtime period. The Irish led for a little more than three minutes of the first four extra periods, comprising 20 minutes of game time.

— After five OTs, the Irish and Cardinals owned identical 19-5 overall records, including 7-4 in Big East play.

— Eight players fouled out of this game, including Notre Dame star center Jack Cooley, who wound up playing a merely human 32 minutes.

— After averaging 1.23 points per minute (48 points) over the first 39 minutes of regulation, the Irish averaged 2.15 points (56 points) over the final minute of regulation and five overtime periods.

“We got to 100 because we played an extra game,” Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said. “It still only counts one Big East win, but it’s a very good one.”

FOUL DECISIONS

Sometimes you make the wrong call, and it turns out right.

Sometimes you make the right call, and it turns out wrong. Wisconsin’s Bo Ryan chose not to have his Badgers spend any of the three fouls they had to give in the final half-minute of a tie game in regulation -- unless it was clear they were beaten off the dribble -- and Michigan’s Tim Hardaway found room to hit what looked to be a decisive 3-point shot with less than three seconds left.

Michigan’s John Beilein told his Wolverines to foul to prevent a tying 3-pointer that would force overtime, but freshman Caris LeVert did not get in proper position to make the play and allowed Wisconsin guard Ben Brust to force overtime with a 44-foot heave.

In the extra period, Wisconsin (17-7) outscored the No. 3 Wolverines (21-3) for a 65-62 victory that put the Big Ten race into an impossible squeeze.

“We had two fouls (to give); we called it out,” Beilein said afterward. “Obviously, you don’t practice it enough. We were definitely fouling, wanted to keep everyone in front of us, and he turned the corner on him just enough that he wasn’t able to foul him. We just missed it.”

Like the legendary Christian Laettner shot to beat Kentucky in the 1992 NCAA Tournament, Brust’s shot was at least as dependent on a brilliant pass as completing the shot. The difference here, though, in addition to the lower stakes, was that the pass and shot were both tougher to complete.

Wisconsin forward Mike Bruesewitz was assigned to inbound. His pass looked like Tom Brady at his best, finding Brust in stride as he curled near the midcourt line toward the sideline. Brust bounced the ball to get closer to the goal and create forward momentum, and then he released a perfect shot.

“The best thing was Mike’s pass -- right on the dime, on the run,” Ryan told ESPN. “It is part of our play, but we don’t always draw the ball up going in like that. That’s hard to do.”

In overtime, Michigan scored only two points on five possessions, the most crucial moment coming when center Mitch McGary got free on a fast-break layup with 2:01 remaining that would have given the Wolverines a lead.

About 90 seconds later -- after UM’s Nik Stauskas had lost control of a defensive rebound on a challenge by Badgers center Jared Berggren that might properly have been called a foul -- Brust hit the game-winning 3-pointer in a more conventional manner. Again, he was tightly guarded by LeVert but hit the shot anyway.

Wisconsin still had those fouls to spend when Michigan hunted for a game-tying shot inside the final 10 seconds but kept them in the bank. All-American candidate Trey Burke was able to get off a deep 3-pointer, but it spun out of the goal.

Badgers fans swarmed the court as soon as it became official: Wisconsin had won its fourth conference game against a ranked opponent. With Michigan and Wisconsin both now 8-3 in the league, each is a half-game out of the first-place tie between Indiana and Michigan State, both 8-2. Ohio State is only one game back at 7-3.

“I said thank you to all of the fans afterward because that was awesome,” Bruesewitz said. “I’ve been part of a lot of big games here. It’s still mind-boggling we get this many fans to come watch us play a game we love to play.

“It’s a lot more fun to play in a loud arena than it is with crickets.”

MIAMI ‘CLOWNS’ UNC

On the play-by-play sheet, it was simply a made dunk by Kenny Kadji. On paper, it was just another basket in a 87-61 blowout victory by the Miami Hurricanes.

In reality, it was a loud statement about how high the ‘Canes have risen -- and how hard the North Carolina Tar Heels have fallen.

With 7:20 left in the game, Miami’s terrific sophomore point guard Shane Larkin got free on a fast break and knew no one was close behind him except Kadji. So what did Larkin do? He bounced the ball off the backboard above the square, and Kadji grabbed it with one hand and flushed it through the goal.

“Clownin,” CBS Sports analyst Doug Gottlieb wrote on Twitter, and he was not disapproving.

The reaction from three courtside celebrities was decidedly positive, although all have close Miami ties. Perhaps the least famous of the three was Larkin’s father, Barry, an all-time great for the Cincinnati Reds and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was on his feet, clapping and smiling, after the play.

So were the two bigger stars in the audience: Miami Heat stars LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, who’ll be elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame when they retire. They know a thrilling play when they see it, and they were standing and cheering as well.

It had to sting Carolina, though, with the Tar Heels falling to 16-7 overall, 6-4 in the ACC, a full four games back of the Hurricanes and their perfect 10-0 mark in league play.

This was by far UNC’s worst loss in league play, but the Heels previously were crushed by Texas (85-67) and Indiana (83-59). And North Carolina’s next game is Wednesday at Duke, which figures to be the new No. 1-ranked team.

KU LOSS NO CALAMITY

OK, so Kansas lost Saturday afternoon, and now the Jayhawks have their first three-game losing streak since 2005. If it seems like that development exacerbates the calamity, it actually does not.

It can’t get worse than losing to TCU.

In fact, if KU had played like KU and won at home against the surging Oklahoma State Cowboys and then taken care of business against the worst team in the Big 12, Saturday’s loss to the Oklahoma Sooners would have been no big deal. OU is 8-2 at home this year. The way the Jayhawks had performed in the past week, they were due for a road loss against a solid team. They were not due for three defeats in a row.

"I hate to say this but there are a lot of teams in the country that lose two or three games in a row, and there are a lot of teams that struggle winning away from home," Jayhawks head coach Bill Self said after the game. "This today isn't magnified from a win-loss standpoint if we had taken care of business when we should have the prior games.”

KU really didn’t play that badly Saturday. The Jayhawks shot 46.3 percent from the field, kept the turnovers to a reasonable 13 and might have won if they’d made a few more 3-point shots. It was another tough one for point guard Elijah Johnson, but at least it was a move in the right direction. He scored 10 points and passed for four assists, but he shot just 3-of-11.

"Obviously, three in a row is not good,” Self said. “I'm not leaving out of here disgusted with my team at all because we actually played better.”

SAY HELLO TO ...

The Memphis Tigers, winners of 14 consecutive games after an 89-76 road victory over Southern Miss in Hattiesburg. Memphis hasn’t lost since Dec. 15, when it allowed a huge early lead to slip away and fell to Louisville by nine. The Tigers are 20-3 overall and own a two-game lead over the Golden Eagles (18-6). This was Memphis’ first RPI top-50 win, and there’s only one chance at another -- in the rematch against USM. Guard Geron Johnson was dominant for the Tigers with 25 points, seven assists and eight rebounds. He committed one turnover, did not miss a free throw or 2-point shot and fouled just twice.

SAY GOODNIGHT TO ...

Michigan State guard Keith Appling, who scored 17 points and hit 2-of-3 from long distance just three days after his right shoulder was dislocated during a victory over Minnesota. He deserves a nice nap after putting himself through that.

SAY A PRAYER FOR ...

The Texas Longhorns, losers of eight of their past 10 games after Oklahoma State’s Marcus Smart returned to his home state and smacked them with 23 points, seven rebounds, five steals and three assists in a 72-59 Cowboys’ win. Texas (10-13) is only a game above last place in the Big 12, just ahead of TCU.